Tag Archives: Sarah Palin 2012

A First Look at Palin’s Primary Math

If Sarah Palin runs for the Republican nomination in 2012 — and I’ve been on record for some time as predicting that she will — what are likely to be her best and worst states? And how do these strengths and weaknesses square with the Republican primary calendar? And what about the other likely candidates?

The first, very, very important thing to notice is that the Republican primary calendar will be different in 2012 than it was two years ago. Although this could change as states jockey for position and rules are amended, for the time being the Republicans have divided the states into five groupings as seen below:

To millions of Americans, Sarah Palin is the one person who can save the US from the perils of communism, gay marriage and gun control. But can she ever win the White House, or will she destroy the American right?

Sarah Palin pressing the flesh in Grand Rapids, on her three-week-long, 14-state promotional "Going Rogue: An American Life" book tour.

It is a freezing night in Indiana. A light drizzle is turning to ice as a crowd of 1,000 people shiver and huddle under umbrellas in a shopping mall car park outside the small Midwestern town of Noblesville. But no one is complaining.

“I came to hear the truth get told,” says Roy Hendrickson, a moustached 66-year-old retiree from the town of Lebanon, about 30 miles away. “I want to see her go rogue!”

She, of course, is Sarah Palin, and Going Rogue is the name of her autobiography. The event tonight is the third stop on one of the most audacious book tours in the history of publishing. It is a 14-state, three-week-long trek through the heartland of America that has already drawn tens of thousands of fans. No other figure on the right of American politics can pull in crowds and generate excitement like Palin. Like Obama with Democrats, people believe in her. But Palin World is a very different place from Obama Nation. In Palin World, America is succumbing to the foreign ideology of socialism, and the lifeblood of the free market is being squeezed by Big Government. The threat of “death panels” haunts the elderly. It is a nation of whispered conspiracies that Obama wants to take away people’s guns, and where communist appointees plot secret internment camps and the forced indoctrination of innocent American youth.

She Must Be Running For President “SarahPAC wasn’t enough?” At Hot Air, Allahpundit can’t see any other reason to form a second political group. “Would someone set up two political action groups if they weren’t thinking seriously about running for president?” he asks. Allahpundit thinks Palin’s organization will be the “domestic policy equivalent” of Liz Cheney’s group. But he’s sorry the two women didn’t combine forces. “How come she didn’t end up partnering with Liz Cheney on Keep America Safe, anyway? It would have been an amazing force multiplier among the grassroots to see their two favorite hawkish women on the same team.” Continue reading →

Here are some of the change numbers on Alaska Governor Sarah Palin’s (R) behind today’s Washington Post poll story about a new low in her favorability rating.

The findings are especially surprising among Palin’s core supporters, Republicans, Conservatives and white evangelicals. Whereas among those polled after the Republicans convention expressed high “strongly favorable” impressions of Sarah Palin (Republicans – 66%; Conservatives – 58% and white evangelicals – 53%), the latest Washington Post – ABC News polls show a significant drop in Palin’s “strongly favorable” ratings. Republicans dropped 24% down to only 41% “strongly favorable”; Conservatives who “strongly” favored Palin declined 23% to only 35% and most surprising, her “strong” support among white evangelicals dropped 20% down to only 33% of respondents who “strongly” favored the soon to be ex-governor of Alaska.

For any politician on the losing end of a bid for national office re-acclimating to their previous life can be a rough road.

Massachusetts Sen. John Kerry struggled to find his place in the Senate following his loss to George W. Bush in 2004, and then vice presidentAl Gore grew a beard and went into semi-seclusion after Bush beat him in 2000.

The adjustment is even more difficult when the politician has been plucked from relative obscurity and must return there — ala former Indiana Sen. Dan Quayle or, more recently, Sarah Palin.

No presidential or vice presidential candidate has risen (and, some would argue, fallen) as fast as the Alaska governor who went from an unknown to the second most famous politician in the world behind only President Barack Obama.

In a terrific piece in today’s paper, the Post’s Michael Leahy documents the unsteady return of Palin (he calls it a “bumpy homecoming”) to the Last Frontier and a decidedly smaller political stage.

JUNEAU, Alaska — A couple of weeks before the Alaska legislature began this year’s session, a bipartisan group of state senators on a retreat a few hours from here invited Gov. Sarah Palin to join them. Accompanied by a retinue of advisers, she took a seat at one end of a conference table and listened passively as Gary Stevens, the president of the Alaska Senate, a former college history professor and a low-key Republican with a reputation for congeniality, expressed delight at her presence.

Gov. Sarah Palin, seen at a news conference last week, has encountered skepticism in her home state that she is too focused on national politics.

Would the governor, a smiling Stevens asked, like to share some of her plans and proposals for the coming legislative session?

Palin looked around the room and paused, according to several senators present. “I feel like you guys are always trying to put me on the spot,” she said finally, as the room became silent.

Gone was the self-assurance that Alaska had come to know in its young Republican governor, well before her life and career were transformed by Sen. John McCain’s selection of her as his vice presidential running mate. “She looked ill at ease, more defensive than we’ve been accustomed to seeing her,” said one legislator who was there and spoke on the condition of anonymity because he said he might need to work with Palin.

Gov. Sarah Palin must pay income taxes on thousands of dollars in expense money she received while living at her Wasilla home, under a new determination by state officials.

Alaska Governor Sarah Palin at her office in Anchorage, Alaska.

The governor’s office wouldn’t say this week how much she owes in back taxes for meal money, or whether she intends to continue to receive the per diem allowance. As of December, she was still charging the state for meals and incidentals.

“The amount of taxes owed is a private matter,” Sharon Leighow, Palin’s spokeswoman, said in an e-mail. “If the governor collects future per diem, those documents would be a matter of public record.”

The revelation about Palin comes as U.S. senators, including Sen. Mark Begich, D-Alaska, are under scrutiny over back taxes. A survey by the political newspaper and Web site Politico (www.politico.com) found that Begich was one of seven senators who acknowledged having paid back taxes.